Consensus As Agreement

The confusion between unanimity and consensus therefore usually leads to the failure of consensus decisions, and the group then returns either to the majority rule, or by super majority, or by dissolving. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) believes that decisions are taken in a broad consensus. [67] The IETF has firmly refrained from defining a mechanical method of verifying such a consensus, apparently believing that such codification leads to attempts to “play the system”. Instead, a working group or BoF chair must express the “sense of the group.” In assessing the performance of consensus protocols, two factors are of interest to the duration and complexity of current events. The performance is shown in the Big O notation in the number of message exchange rounds based on certain input settings (usually the number of processes and/or the size of the input domain). The complexity of the information refers to the extent of the information traffic generated by the protocol. Other factors may be the use of memory and the size of the messages. Another method of promoting an agreement is to apply a voting procedure in which all members of the group have a strategic incentive to accept rather than block it. [34] However, it is very difficult to distinguish between those who support the decision and those who only tolerate it tactically for incitement.

Once they have received this incentive, they may undermine or reject the agreement in different and non-obvious ways. In general, voting systems avoid offering incentives (or “bribes”) to change a cordial vote. Randomized consensus algorithms can bypass the result of FLP impossibility by achieving security and vitality with overwhelming probability, even in the most pessimistic planning scenarios such as a smart denial of service attacker on the network. [6] The consensus number in the hierarchy indicates the maximum number of processes in the system that can reach consensus across the given object. Objects that are more consensual cannot be implemented by objects that are less consensual. The problem of consensus can be taken into account in asynchronous or synchronous systems. Although real-world communication is often asynchronous in nature, it is more convenient and often easier to model synchronous systems[4] because asynchronous systems naturally pose more problems than synchronous systems. Outside of Western culture, several other cultures have used consensual decisions.

An early example is the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee Confederation (Iroquois), which used a 75 per cent super-majority to finalize its decisions,[52] perhaps 1142. [53] In the Xulu and Xhosa (South Africa) trials, Community leaders meet to listen to the public and negotiate visual thresholds for an acceptable compromise. The technology was also used at the 2015 UN climate change conference. [54] [55] In the cultures of Aceh and Nia (Indonesian), family and regional conflicts, from playground battles to inheritance, are managed through a musyawarah consensus education process, in which the parties mediate to find peace and avoid future hostilities and revenge. The resulting agreements should be respected, ranging from advice and warnings to compensation and exile. [56] [57] The Quaker model has been adapted by Earlham College for application to secular attitudes and can be applied effectively in any consensual decision-making process. “The results of my experience are consistent with Michelson`s and with the law of general relativity.” For n process in a partially synchronous system (the system changes good and bad synchronization phases), each process chooses a private value.

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